


Porgs and Peace

by Esmethewitch



Category: Peter Rabbit (2018), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ach-To, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Animal Instincts, Animal Transformation, Calligraphy, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, Evil Wins, Explosives, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Green Milk - Freeform, Humor, Hux gets his butt kicked by porgs, Hux hates Nature, M/M, Middle Age, Painting, Past Abuse, Rain, Soft Kylux, Vacation, Yet another WIP I shouldn't have started, as healthy a relationship as I could write for these two assholes, background reyrose, background stormpilot, emotionally constipated, mentions of couples therapy, old married kylux, or did it?, porgs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-05 03:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21206654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmethewitch/pseuds/Esmethewitch
Summary: After Kylo Ren kills all the Resistance in one fell swoop using the powers of the Force, he discovers that ruling the Galaxy is boring for him and stressful for Hux. He convinces Hux to go with him on a retreat to Ach-to. At first, all seems to be well; he practices calligraphy and gets into painting. Hux starts a garden like he always dreamed of doing. But soon, Hux is chased everywhere by a squadron of vicious porgs who divebomb him and raid the garden. Some of them wear little jackets, and one has a tiny necklace. Hux swears they can talk. Maybe Ach-to isn't such an idyllic place after all. The Peter Rabbit Star Wars Canonverse AU nobody asked for.





	1. Home Away

**Author's Note:**

> So this is what happens when I watch a bunch of Peter Rabbit clips with no context. I see General Hux in retirement taking out his frustrations on the local wildlife.

The waves howled and splattered on the stony shores of Ach-to like a bunch of crazy Resistance pilots suicide-bombing a dreadnought. Flocks of porgs darted with improbable speed across the grey skies.

“We’re here!” Kylo Ren exclaimed, spreading his arms like some oversized seabird drying his wings in the sun. Only there were no warm sunbeams to dry him today; his black robes were sodden and only got wetter under the deluge and ocean spray. This whole trip was a mistake, Hux mused. From her carrier, Millicent hissed in agreement. Damn Ren and his stupid suggestions and pleas for a six month vacation. He was sure they would be attempting to strangle each other after a fortnight. And they weren’t supposed to do that sort of thing anymore. Trust Ren to frame everything as concern for his well-being and then throw him under the space-bus as always. The driving rain and wild waves made his thoughts, unbidden, return to Arkanis and the Academy. He willed himself not to flinch.

“Why did we have to come here again, Ren?” he asked. “Didn’t your uncle use to live here? I thought you were all about letting the past die and so on.”

Kylo grinned. “I wanted to see what my unc—Skywalker was up to before he died. And besides, we can kill the past together.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Hux scowled. “Ren, by ‘killing the past’, I hope you mean—” He was cut off by the twittering of another flock of porgs. This time, the non-aerodynamic things (Birds? Mammals? Some unholy combination of the two) streamed out of the open landing bay of their shuttle. “We should close that door and get moving before we drown. Otherwise we’ll have an infestation on our hands.”

Ren raised a hand, and the shuttle door closed. “Alright. It’s not even two miles to the huts.” He shouldered his pack and began to walk.

“Wait.”

“What now?”

“We haven’t locked it.”

Kylo sighed. “We are the only two humans on this planet, and the Caretakers are not a space-faring people, Hux.”

“I don’t care, Ren. If our ship gets stolen and we’re left stranded with no way out, or if those plogs- prongs—whatever the kriff they are eat up the upholstery on the seats and breed in it, I’m blaming you.”

The Master of the Knights of Ren, ruler of the observable Galaxy, a man who had slaughtered his fellow students, cut down hundreds of worthy opponents with his red blade, murdered his own father, and in what many considered his cruelest act of all reduced his own mother, the last Jedi Rey, and the entire military might of the Resistance to nothing in a blue implosion of Force-power grimaced. “You raise some good points, Hux. Thank you for reminding me.”

He reached into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out the little key-fob, pressing down twice until it gave the telltale beep. “It’s locked. Now let’s go.”

Hux pulled on his pack and winced as his back protested. Kylo packed it. Of course he did. And the boy (well, he was not that anymore, but he was younger than Hux, who was beginning to feel old and see silver in his hair) thought that a normal back was ridiculously strong, strengthened by the Force and a virgin to incidents such as dislocated vertebrae. “What’s in here, bricks?”

“No. Things. For you. We can unpack once we get in somewhere dry.”

Hux held his peace and adjusted his grip on the cat carrier. They started up the treacherous stone stairs, shining in puddles of rainwater. The green hills were beautiful, he would admit that. And the porgs (not prongs, Kylo insisted) were kind of cute, rubbing themselves against wet leaves and shaking their fur-feathers dry, cooing and twittering to one another as they timidly watched Hux and his husband climb the stairs.

“They are so sweet,” Kylo gushed as they passed a nesting pair grooming one another. “Just like little people.”

Hux thought he knew rather too much about people to find joy in animals resembling them. “I thought you big scary Sith weren’t supposed to care about fluffy animals.”

Kylo looked at him reproachfully over his shoulder like a big puppy. “The Jedi said attachment was forbidden. If I want to reject everything they’ve ever taught, I should get attached as much as I can.”

He snaked his gloved hand over to Hux, grazing his wrist and fingers. Hux took it, squeezing the damp leather. “I mostly married you for the tax write-offs, you know,” Hux said. “Your substantial endowment and tractability in the bedroom were surprises, but welcome ones to be sure.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Hux. I can read minds.” Hux’s right knee seized up, burning with invisible sparks as he ascended a particularly high step.

“Gah!”

“We can stop. This is a nice scenic point.” Kylo placed a hand on Hux’s back, stabilizing him. He put another hand on his hip, then guided him to sit down on the cold, wet stone.

“My drawers are going to be soaked,” Hux moaned. Millicent yowled in response. Some rain had probably ran through the airholes and got her wet. He was pointedly not talking about the knee. He was not thinking about how the patella shattered in his own private explosion of pain as he slid down the wall to the polished floor of the Finalizer after the same man who would now carry him from the bathtub to the bed threw him against it.

“You didn’t use to complain about that,” Kylo said, smirking.

Hux slapped him on the face. Not hard. It was really more of a pat. “What are you, a teenager? I am sitting in a puddle of water, Ren, and I am getting old.” They’d told him that he should have the joint replaced. Hux refused. Back then, joint replacements were for old people. Kylo frowned. He knew which knee hurt, and he knew why.

He crouched before him and peeled off his gloves, sticking them in his belt. He ran his fingers over the bump of Hux’s knee, feeling the knots of sinew and imperfectly healed bone.

“Can I work on it for you?” This concern for what Hux thought was relatively new. He liked it.

“I guess so. As you are not a surgeon or physiotherapist, I don’t know what you can do, but it’s worth a try.” _This was your fault, _he thought but did not say. Kylo could read minds.

Kylo Ren squeezed and probed gently. Then, a faint purple light glowed around his knee, and Hux felt the net of tense muscles relax. “Stars, Ren, what did you do?”

“Tricked your muscles into thinking everything’s fine. You should probably get it checked over in medbay when we go back.”

“Ah.” Hux stood up. He felt better than he had in months. He manhandled the pack back on, apologized to Millicent, and got moving again. Mist swirled around them. After a few more agonizing, nearly vertical steps lichen-encrusted primitive huts squatted over them.

“Our lodgings,” Kylo said. Hux forced himself to smile.

“Great. Dry floors and a roaring fire would do nicely right now.”


	2. Meat Pie

Hux pushed open the heavy wooden door of the hut that was ostensibly theirs. It didn’t look like much, but at least it didn’t have a great big hole blasted in the wall like the one next door. Inside, light seeped in from the cracked shutters of a tiny window, most likely unglazed. The single room was dark. Hux could just make out the shapes of a bed, and a table with two chairs placed in front of the yawning hole of a fireplace. There was something he’d only seen in old historical holos on the center of the table: a candle. He fumbled in his pockets for the lighter that had been gone since the medbay staff bullied him into quitting smoking.

“Here”, said Kylo after the fruitless search. He took the candle, placing his right hand over it. After a minute or so of intense concentration, a thin, crackling bolt of Force-lightning arched from his fingers and struck the taper, which began to burn.

“Show-off”, Hux muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

In the flickering candlelight, Hux could see that their lodgings were spartan but comfortable enough. The bed was covered in a thick patchwork quilt, and there was a decent-sized stack of wood by the fireplace. He let Millicent out of her carrier. She glared at him, and then jumped onto one of the chairs and got to work grooming her damp fur. Hux’s stomach rumbled. He opened up his pack and pulled out a couple of ration bars. Those would do for their supper. Kylo stopped him.

“Wait. The Caretakers will feed us, if we help them with some chores.”

“The Caretakers?”

“The name they have for themselves is the Lanai, I think. They’re sort of a religious order. Everything here is maintained, thanks to them.”

Kylo blew out the candle, and they left the hut. The downpour had subsided into a faint drizzle. Millicent squeezed herself out from between their legs and departed in an orange streak.

“Millie! Stop that—will she be alright?” Millicent heeded neither Force nor man. Regardless, Kylo still worried about her.

“She can look after herself,” Hux said. “She’ll come back when she’s bored or hungry.” They picked their way over another slippery set of stairs and stopped at a large house made of the same type of stone as their hut but rather better maintained. “Here?”

“Yes. Let’s follow their lead and not make them angry.”

Hux snorted, remembering thousands of credits in trashed consoles and a diplomat from a faraway star system deriding the First Order as “savages who rely upon an insane monster to rule”. Kylo knocked twice at the door. Footsteps sounded. The door creaked open, revealing an apparent fish-frog hybrid wearing a simple brown dress, a wimple, and an expression of reproach. Kylo gave a quick bow and motioned for Hux to do the same. He did. Kylo mimed staggering about under some heavy burden, and the nun clapped her flipper-hands together and gurgled with delight.

She led Kylo down a path to a pile of stones, beneath a tall cliff with a half-finished wall at the top. Kylo cracked his knuckles, took a deep breath, and began levitating the stones up the cliff face. Hux had to admit that this fascinated him. He used to think that the Force was only fit for destruction, but as Kylo had matured he’d seen other sides of it. Hux was aware that he was standing next to them like a confused akk-dog, arms limply at his sides. The fish-nun looked up at Hux and gestured to the house. He took a few steps toward it, and she nodded.

Back at the house, he took in the smoky air, rich with cooking fat and spices. Bunches of herbs hung upside down from the rafters to dry. An army of brown-clothed fish-nuns were busy chopping vegetables, stirring pots on a suspiciously modern looking cooking range, and peering at a rack of golden pies in a large oven. He waved his arms around awkwardly, until the stoutest of the fish-nuns with a circular stone as a pendant over her starched white apron led him to a sink full of dirty dishes. Ah well. Not even the Force could banish sauce-encrusted dishes, according to Kylo. Hux had asked.

“I could make them vanish,” Kylo explained, “but I can’t guarantee that I know where I’m sending them to, or what’s to become of them. If you want me to smash them, that I can do. I can also levitate them into the dishwater, but that takes the same mental effort as it would to wash them by hand.”

Hux scraped food scraps into a trash can, scrubbed off the brown wooden plates and heavy black kettles in soapy water, rinsed, and dried them, placing them on a sideboard. A tiny fish-nun with slightly less wrinkles than the rest would periodically collect them and put them away. It was nice just having one menial task to do, Hux mused. Much less taxing than ruling the Galaxy.

After what felt like less time than he’d expected, there were no more dishes to wash and the big fish-nun with the necklace was ringing a bell. She went outside and repeated the action, the clang-clang echoing off the outcroppings of rocks. Kylo Ren walked up the path, sweaty and tired but with an idiotic grin on his face. “I got them all up, Hux! All of them, right up that cliff.”

“Well done,” said Hux._ Make each other feel a-a-appreciated, sir,_ Lieutenant Dopheld Mitaka had told them years ago, reading off the holo-text that he was studying as part of his holonet counselling master’s program. The junior officer did not want to be there with Ren and Hux and had demanded combat pay until Ren had gone one week without choking him. Mitaka still stammered horribly and shook in Ren’s presence, but he was the closest thing the First Order had to a relationship counselor so they kept on with it. Hux thought that Mitaka would actually make a phenomenal therapist, provided he was only seeing clients who would not extract humiliating childhood memories from his brain or threaten to choke him.

“Do you know what’s for dinner?”

“I think it’s some kind of meat pie.”

And it was. The nuns passed them thick slices of delicious-looking meat pie oozing with brown gravy, the crust flakey and cooked to a turn. Hux’s mouth watered. The dish resembled something his mother used to make—_no, no, don’t think about her. _After everyone was served, one of the Fish-nuns pulled out a battered little book. They all bowed their heads as the nun read in a whistling, gurgling voice. It was some kind of prayer, and Hux would wager it translated approximately to “thank-you for this food.” He practically inhaled the pie. It was as good as it looked and smelled, with fat peas like emeralds studding the gravy and meat. The meat was white, and it tasted like a bird.

“Hux, do you know what they made this out of? It’s amazing!”

“I didn’t see them butchering the meat,” said Hux when he came up for air. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s fowl. I don’t know which kind, though.”

Kylo cleared his throat and asked the nun beside him something in a nasal tone, gulping wetly a couple of times. The nun blub-blubbed out a reply. Kylo blanched.

“What is it, kittens and babies?”

“No. Porgs.” After that, Kylo nervously moved the bits of meat around with his fork but did not eat.

“Are you going to finish that?”

“No.”

“I’ll take it then.”

Kylo scrunched up his face. “You’re still going to eat that? Even when you know what’s in it?”

“Waste not, want not,” Hux said primly. “If I were to care about the origins of all my food, I’d never eat at all.”

Kylo slumped over and shoved his plate to Hux.

“That was Timothy, you evil greasy bastard! You’re eating him!” someone said behind him. Hux turned. There was nobody there. None of the fish-nuns spoke Basic; it seemed their vocal cords weren’t set up for it. Maybe he was imagining things. He dug into his food again.

“He was always so nice,” the same voice continued, choking on tears. It was a woman’s voice, oddly familiar. Where had he heard it before? “I’m going to kill him.”

“We can’t do anything in our current state,” cautioned another voice, also feminine. This one had a faint Core accent. Now Hux was craning his neck, looking for the source of the voices. Perhaps all of this vacationing was driving him insane.

“Kylo! Did you just hear that?”

“Hear what?”, Kylo asked morosely.

“Never mind.”

“We can lay into him later,” a new, third voice said. “When it’s just us and him. He’ll be outnumbered, and not expect it.” This was a man’s voice, and something about it sent chills down his spine. He definitely heard this one before. He knew where._ General Hugs._ No, he did not feel guilty about his part in destroying the Resistance at all. He had hallucinated things before, mostly as a result of sleep deprivation. He’d go to bed early tonight.

Suddenly, there was a rustling behind one of the curtains in the dining hall window. Now Kylo was watching too. Three porgs poked their heads out, squeaked when they saw Kylo, and flew away. _Was one of them wearing a little silvery necklace?_  
“There were porgs. Watching us eat porg pie,” Kylo shrieked.

“I’ve blown up five planets, Ren. Why do you care?”

“We ate it!”

“Everyone has to eat.”

“But they have those big eyes…”

The nuns were staring at them. Hux took this as his cue to stand up, nod politely, and tow his husband out the door. “We can make our own food later,” he said as they ambled back to their lodgings. Millicent was pacing back and forth in front of the door, and meowed when she saw them. They went in and undressed for the night. Hux draped his clothes from the day (still damp) over the back of a chair and prayed they’d dry. He got into bed first, claiming the side by the door. Kylo joined him.

“I’ve been thinking about this planet a lot,” Kylo murmured as they settled in.

“Oh?”

“Rey was the last person here. Well, besides Luke, and he’s dead. And I…I miss Rey, sometimes. I had to kill her, but it doesn’t feel like she’s truly gone.”

“Maybe her Force-ghost is watching us as we sleep,” said Hux acidly. He’d heard more than enough about Rey, years ago. _The girl_ this. _The scavenger_ that. Hux would not admit it, but he was a jealous man.

“No, it wasn’t like that, Hux! She was sort of a part of me. I mean, like an arm or a leg. It’s part of me, but I don’t want to kriff it, you know? Anyway, the thing that really got me about her is that she would have been such a good Sith. She was so angry.”

Hux sighed. “She was angry at you, Ren. You stuck her in restraints, rummaged through her mind like it was the lucky dip at a fair, and then told her she was nothing but spacer trash. We should all be so fortunate.”

Ren paused. “She was angry at the Galaxy. It kriffed her over. She wanted to make it pay. I could totally see her in black, with a red lightsaber…”

“She’s dead.”

“I know. It just doesn’t feel like it.”

Hux didn’t like this topic of conversation, so he threw in a barb of his own: “You would have made a great Jedi.”

“HUX! WHAT THE KRIFF!”

“I mean it. I used to call you a crybaby. You sort of were, but that’s because you were sensitive. If you put your mind to it, you could have cared for the whole Galaxy. Millicent likes you. You like those karking little porgs, even though to my mind they’re nothing more than rats with wings. When you meditate, you’re calm.”

Kylo rolled over. Hux sighed. Now he was in a snit. “What I was getting at,” he explained, “is that it’s not about your potential and characteristics, but the choices you make. You could have been some twee little Jedi prince flouncing about with flowers in your hair, a flock of disgustingly adorable orphan students, and a bunch of lovesick fluffy creatures following you everywhere. But you’re not. You are immersed in the Dark Side, and I lo--I respect you greatly for it.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He meant it too.

Kylo began to sniffle.

“What is it now?”

“That was a really nice thing you said.”

“Thank you.” He threw his arms around Kylo. “Now, let’s try to get some sleep.”

In the last fuzzy moments before drifting off to sleep, Hux thought he heard a chorus of tiny human voices raised in argument outside of the window. He dismissed it as an auditory hallucination.


	3. Frolic!

Hux would grudgingly admit that Ach-to could be beautiful and that Kylo often had good ideas, in that order. The sun shone bright over the green hills, and the ocean sparkled beneath them. A gentle breeze blew through the warm air. They'd gotten into a routine here; Kylo would paint in the mornings while Hux worked in their vegetable garden. But even the most idyllic of routines benefited from a change once in a while. Today, they were doing a lot of nothing. Together, they sat on a blanket with a picnic basket and enjoyed the view. Kylo still wore his usual black robes (he must be overheating), but today Hux sported khaki trousers and a yellow button-up shirt dotted with tiny red blooms.

The sleeves were three-quarter length because he wanted to be casually dressed but he still had Standards. He felt a little uncomfortable dressed like this, but Captain Peavey had once come into work on Casual Friday wearing sandals, cargo shorts, and a garishly printed Scarif-style shirt, so Hux knew there were some sartorial levels he’d never sink to.

There was nothing left but crumbs of the sandwiches and biscuits that Kylo packed. Half of a bottle of wine had been drunk. Hux was pleasantly surprised to see how his husband developed a new interest in cooking. It didn’t damage any infrastructure apart from the one time that his Naboo Pear cake had overflowed and caused an oven fire in their quarters, and he got to eat his efforts. It brought them closer together as well.

Once, Hux had walked in on Kylo cursing at a pie crust that just wasn’t coming together, and Hux had gently sprinkled more water over the crumbly dough, dusted the rolling pin with flour, and guided Kylo as they flattened it out. “Not too hard,” Hux cautioned. “Otherwise, you might as well be stabbing your fork through durasteel when it’s done baking. The more you beat at it, the harder it will get.” Kylo didn’t ask Hux how he knew this. Hux was grateful for it.

Today, he got to enjoy sandwiches made on homemade bread filled with fish that Kylo somehow speared while jumping from rock to rock with a stick. Force-users. This feast was followed by delicate biscuits flavored by a sweet purple herb that grew in bunches between the rocks. Kylo said it was called Lavender. Stomachs full and sleepy from the sun and wine, they leaned against each other.

“This is nice”, Kylo said. “We should do this more often. Get out and frolic.”

“Hmm. What do you mean by frolic?” Hux should have taken note of Kylo’s childish expression. Oh well.

They never had a honeymoon when they got married, Hux recalled. They celebrated the occasion with a round of especially vigorous sex that night, then went back to work the next morning as though nothing happened. Hux had been the butt of a few off-color jokes on the bridge. He laced the personal caf-thermoses of the amateur comedians with strychnine or extra-strength laxatives, depending on the severity of the offence and its perpetrator’s value to the First Order. By that afternoon, nobody was smirking anymore.

Nothing and everything changed with their wedding. They had a name to the arrangement they had, but they didn’t discuss it. And then things went south with the girl, and the map, and all that nasty business with Snoke, and they’d actually wanted to kill each other for a while…they couldn’t pretend all of that hadn’t happened, but they were giving it their best effort. It was easier to do that on this island on a Force-forsaken planet in the middle of nowhere.

“Remind me why we’re here again,” a voice said from the direction of the bushes. It was of the ones he heard at the dinner with the nuns two weeks ago. Hux froze. He was hallucinating after eight hours of sleep, in broad daylight.

“Kylo! Did you hear that?”

“Mmm. I love how the waves sound. It’s like this constant whisper…” he was drifting off to sleep, basking in the sun. Hux rolled his eyes.

“Never mind.” He stroked Kylo’s luxurious hair, and Kylo leaned into his touch like a cat. He could discount the possibility of intrusive thoughts. Those only came when he was in emotional distress, and he felt fine at the moment.

“I feel like a creep here, and I’ve watched Kylo Ren more than I ever wanted to in my life,” the voice continued. It had a name. Rey. But she was supposed to be dead.  
“Recon is important”, replied the disembodied voice of Poe Dameron. “If they go back to the garden and house while Connix and the rest are busy, it could be a disaster for all of us. So we stay here, and if they show any signs of going back we warn them, and if we can’t get to them we do what we can to stall. Besides, this could be good.”

“Good?” This was the Traitor FN-2187. Hux ground his teeth.

“You know…interesting, entertaining, educational. They think they’re all alone…”

“Don’t be gross, Poe!”, a fourth voice scolded. Rose Tico. The horrible little woman who bit him.

“I second that,” said Rey. “If it looks like they’re going to make out or do the do, we leave. I don’t like looking at men’s junk. I’ve seen more of it than I ever wanted to in my life.”

“Sorry, Rey,” Finn said sheepishly. “In our defense, we thought the server room would be empty at that time of night…”

Hux craned his neck and squinted through the sparse cover of the bushes. There were no people, no blue-glowing Force-ghosts. Only four porgs clustered together, two males and two females. One was wearing…a little jacket with red stripes? No, that couldn’t be, his eyes must be playing tricks on him. He glared at the jacket-wearing porg.

“Um, cheep-cheep?” the porg said.

Hux shook Kylo. “We need to go back to hut. And the garden. Just to make everything’s still there.”

Kylo glanced up at him, hurt. “Why? We were having such a good time. And everything shares the land with each other, here. The Caretakers told me that. Your beanpoles won’t be knocked down; your cabbages will still be intact.”

“I just have a feeling, okay? I also want to do some dusting and wipe down our table.”

Kylo sighed. “You need to relax more, Hux. Look at this hill. What do you see?”

Hux looked down the hill. “Grass. Water. Exposed sedimentary rock, probably eroded from wind and rain. It’s all at an angle of maybe thirty degrees, give or take. Why?”

“You’re understanding its components, but you don’t know what it can do for you. We can sit here and eat a good lunch. We can roll down it. You’re so focused on the details, you don’t get the whole sometimes. It’s sort of like the Force in this universe. We can see it in little details everywhere, but it’s crazy hard to understand as its own separate entity.”

“That was some good mystical nonsense there.” He paused. If Rey, or the hallucination of Rey as a talking porg had an aversion to men kissing, he may as well drive her away. He leaned into Kylo, grabbing his wrists, straddling him, and bearing him down onto the grass. Kylo laughed.

“It worked, though. I have you under my spell.”

“Yes, I remember that time you said the Force told you that I would kiss you. You said: ‘I have foreseen it. It is the will of the Force that your cherry lips shall grace mine.’ Then, you asked me if I was an angel. I nearly cried that such awkwardness could exist in this Galaxy. I went out for drinks with Phasma that night and told her everything.”

“Ah, but the Force was right—” Hux shut him up with a kiss, deep and hard. He loved pinning Kylo down like this. He knew the other man could send him flying off of him, but he wouldn’t. He felt the familiar rise of Kylo’s bulge against him, so he slotted a knee between his legs and gently gave him a little friction. It wasn’t enough. Kylo let out a frustrated growl and rolled them over, kneading Hux into the springy turf.

“Okay, we’ve seen enough,” said Rey. “Snoke put us on the Force-connection line when he was in the shower, when I was in the shower, and one time when we were both on the toilet. It was terrible. At least it helped confirm that I was only into girls.”

“Kylo! The porgs!”

“What about the porgs?”

“I can hear them. They’re talking.”

“Hux can hear us?”, Rose cried. “I didn’t think he could, oh no…”

“Kylo should be able to hear us too,” Rey mused. “This isn’t going to go well.”

Kylo listened closely. “Ooh, this is interesting! I’ve been studying their sounds from a holobook. That one sounds like a broody female calling her mate back to the nest, and her mate answering back. Now, sometimes pairs of the same sex will raise an egg, so although typically the female does incubate the egg while the male hunts for fish, it could be a male making that same call. I didn’t think they were breeding this time of year…”

“BROODY?!”, Rose yelled, the sound ending in a high-pitched growl. “I’ll show that streak of bantha-piss of a Space Wizard broody! He’s made my life hell!”

“Shh, Rose, it’s okay. I’ll get you some new smooth rocks when we get back and feed you, you like that…”

“I didn’t use to like that! I shouldn’t enjoy my girlfriend eating raw fish and throwing it up in my mouth, but now I love it! He turned us into animals, and we lose more of our humanity every day.”

Kylo turned. “Those are some interesting sounds. Maybe the breeding seasons have changed. There’s only like, one book about porgs out there. They aren’t well-studied creatures at all.”

“You don’t think their calls sound like, I don’t know, people talking?”

“Aww, the porgs have grown on you, Hux! You used to call them flying rats.”

“They still are.”

“They’re cute!”

“Ugh, fine. You can call them cute. Just don’t expect me to knit them little sweaters or put up a feeder for them.”

“I don’t think they’d wear sweaters.” Kylo nuzzled Hux’s neck. This was a sensitive spot, so he only lightly pecked the delicate skin, keeping his hands at Hux’s wrists. He kissed Hux again, and Hux hoped that this display of affection would drive his hallucinations away. No such luck. The porgs had left the bushes and were now sitting in a line, watching them. He rolled his hips up, lightly rutting against Kylo and letting out an exaggerated breathy little moan. The skinny porg had her eyes closed, but the other three seemed happy enough.

Kylo was wasting their time here. If he wanted to drive all of them away, he’d have to resort to more drastic measures. He wriggled under Kylo and flipped them over again, with the aim of pinning him down and shoving a hand down his pants. He miscalculated. They rolled down the hill, first in each other’s arms, then pulled apart by their individual velocities. Kylo laughed. “That’s the spirit, Hux! Frolic!”

Hux gasped as his field of vision flashed from grassy hillside to bright, merciless sky and back again. He was bouncing against the hard ground, and in one horrible instant he realized he wasn’t slowing down like Kylo was. He screamed. He could see a pile of sharp rocks at the bottom. _This is how I die,_ he realized. _Not by Force-choking, not by assassination, not in a battle, but at the bottom of a hill that I rolled down because I wanted to get on top of Kylo. What a way to go._

Suddenly, he stopped, every molecule of his being immobilized. Kylo held out a hand in front of him, and Hux saw that he was holding him in place with the Force. Kylo scooted down the hill, and yanked Hux up. Together, they climbed back to their picnic spot. Sometimes they had to stop because it was much steeper than either of them had imagined and Hux’s knee seized up again.

“This is why adults shouldn’t do kids’ stuff,” Hux admonished, wheezing as they reached the top.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Hux. I guess we’re getting old.”


	4. Paintings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux goes full General, and Kylo paints his feelings.

“There has been a security breach,” Hux announced.

“Wha’?”, Kylo mumbled sleepily. Hux was shaking him and for a minute he thought they were back on the Supremacy and Hux was chewing him out over unimportant matters such as the stormtrooper program, an unbalanced budget, unhappy repair technicians, or the presence of Rebel Scum like Rey aboard the ship.

“Lemme get my saber, I’ll deal with it,” he slurred. He pushed the shutters open and glared out at the pale sky. The stars were still out. They were not on a spaceship. Then why was there a security breach?

Hux sighed. “Let me show you.” He led Kylo out still in his TIE Silencer pyjamas, cold dew from the grass chilling his bare feet. He swung open the little gate that protected his proud rows of vegetables from whatever invaders stupid enough to climb up a hill rather than dive into the bounty of the sea.

“Here!”, Hux barked, gesturing down at a row of tomatoes. Kylo looked. Pressed into the soft earth were the footprints of many webbed feet. Where a crop of shiny ripe tomatoes, red as Kylo’s lightsaber had once hung, there was nothing but a lot of torn-up vines. By the fence that Hux had painstakingly woven together with whippy young branches and twine lay a smashed fruit, seeds and juice spilled on the ground. The bite marks of a tiny animal punctured the skin.

“Wow. Something likes tomatoes around here.”

“That something is porgs. The tracks match up. The bite mark size corresponds to the damage a porg could do. They have to go, Ren.”

Kylo gazed blearily at the vegetable (or was it fruit? He could never quite remember) carnage. “Porgs don’t eat plants. They’re….what’s the word, obligate carnivores. On a piscine diet, I think. Not sure they can digest anything besides fish.”

“These ones can.” Hux, in the light of dawn with dark circles beneath his eyes looked more than a little mad. “I sat out and watched them. They fly over the fence, and then the ones inside toss the tomatoes out to their filthy thieving friends. Then they carry them together off to whatever lair they have hidden away. Mark my words, they’ll be after the cabbages next.”

“Uhm…” Kylo started awkwardly patting his husband on the back. “Perhaps you’ve been overdoing it. Can you come back to bed with me? Please?”

“Without my vigilance they will make a ruin of the garden and a laughingstock of me. I will get supplies from our shuttle.”

Kylo sighed. “I don’t think you’re a laughingstock. I just want you to get sleep. And sleep deprivation can do funny things to a person.”

“These porgs are not normal, Kylo. Some of them are wearing clothes. I can hear them laughing at me.”

“And that is why you need more sleep.” Hux was swaying. Kylo grit his teeth. He knew an especially effective method of quelling Hux, but Lieutenant Mitaka said he wasn’t to do it anymore without that security thingy, what was it called, oh yes, a safeword. Oh well. If he did nothing, Hux would catch his death out here hallucinating porgs. He swept Hux up into his arms.

Hux twisted and wriggled like a cat, scratching with his nails. “Ren! Unhand me this instant!” Unlike a cat, Hux was heavier than he looked. He stumbled back to their hut with arms full of angry General.

“You need sleep,” said Kylo. “The wildlife will still be there for you to terrorize in the morning.”

“It is the morning, you layabout. Four fifteen, to be precise.”

“Like I said, we’ll leave this till morning,” Kylo repeated. They were back inside, and he lowered Hux to the bed, planted a kiss on his lips, and let his hands wander.  
“Oh, you brute!”, Hux exclaimed. Kylo got to work on his buttons and kept kissing. “Well, if you really must,” Hux gasped.

Soon, Kylo was exhausted, but the snoring form of Hux beside him was a testament to the efficacy of his methods. When the buttery light of dawn oozed through their shutters and hit Kylo straight in the eye with the pain of a drop of acid, he extricated himself from his husband and tiptoed over to the corner of the hut where he kept his easel and paints. The sunlight was blinding and made him feel all sorts of Dark Side emotions of pain and rage. He was going to paint them.  
As the day began, he splattered the canvas with ropes of red and black acrylic paint, tying the whole thing together with a slash of grey to represent his torn-apartness. His conflict within him, right. Lieutenant Mitaka had been an unsung genius to suggest art therapy. When he wanted to destroy consoles, he’d hack and slash at a canvas with brushes instead, listening to angry music. It wasn’t quite as satisfying at first, but it was nice to create something with his anger rather than mindlessly destroy.

“Cheep? CooooooooCoooooo Cheep!” The calls of porgs brought him out of his anger at suns for shining in his face and Hux’s paranoia for robbing him of sleep. He looked down, and there sat four porgs. Two males with orange rings round their eyes, and two females. Something melted inside of him.

“Aww,” said Kylo softly. “Good morning to you!” He crouched down and patted the closest porg on the head.

The round little female flinched and growled at him. Kylo didn’t know that was a noise they could make. “Oh. I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me.”

Her friends came and stood by her sides. “Cheep. Cheep? CHEEEEEEEPPP!!!” The loudest one was wearing a little jacket-no, that wasn’t a jacket, it was a trick of the light.

“My goodness,” Kylo replied. It was adorable that they thought they were talking to him! “Stay right there,” he told them. “I have to get my watercolors. You will make the best picture sitting there like that.”

He scrambled for his watercolor kit, and when he returned he was gratified to see they hadn’t run off. One was perched on the big canvas of his abstract painting, turning her head this way and that quizzically.

“If you could get back with the others, I’d be much obliged,” said Kylo. If Hux were there to hear him and not sleeping off whatever anxiety bender led him to stomp around at night (concerning), he would have been congratulated on his manners.

The porg flew down and joined the little flock. Kylo set up the kit and lightly sketched the outlines. He wet the paper and lost himself in the control of paint and water. The porgs watched with interest. Sometimes his paint would run, but then he’d use the Force to push it back through the paper, reversing capillary action. Watercolor was hard. But the results were so pretty. When he finished the portrait (porg-trait? He made himself laugh with that one), the porgs clustered round him and looked at it. One made appreciative little noises, and then as one creature they flew away.

He heard the hut door swing open and watched Hux stagger out. Hux blinked and took in the paintings. “You’ve been busy,” he said. “What is the big painting supposed to be? It is very…dynamic.” Kylo could feel Hux casting about for a word that didn’t mean “childish”, or “sloppy”.

“It’s supposed to be my feelings, Hux,” Kylo said.

“Oh. That would explain it.” Hux looked over his shoulder at the porg painting. “Wow! I was not expecting that. Those are good!”

Kylo remembered Hux’s diatribes against porgs. “You really think so?”

“Yes. I normally hate the vermin, and you’ve made them look civilized and adorable. Reminds me a bit of the illustrations in this one book I had as a kid.”

Hux pecked Kylo’s cheek. “I made us lunch,” he said. “I think I’ll take a walk afterwards.”

“Okay. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay here and keep painting. Have a good time.” Kylo wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the fleeting smirk on Hux’s face or not.


End file.
